The Euro crisis is the most important issue of the last months and hundredth of experts do not stop giving their opinion about the reasons and solutions to the crisis. Nevertheless, I definitely think that they are missing the point. The main reason of the Euro crisis are cultural differences.
The Euro is the product of the European Union, an union based on the idea that Northern Europe (mainly Germany and France) might benefit from the development of Southern Europe. In other words, Germany and France finance the development of countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece, considering that German and French companies will benefit from a large integrated European market. This way, Germany and France thought they might achieve a virtuous circle in which every European country might grow and increase its standard of living. A great idea...on the paper.
The problem is that Germans think like ... Germans, Frenchs think like Frenchs, Spanishs think like Spanishs and ... Greeks think like Greeks! In other words, northern countries / cultures are naturally more rigorous, more rationnal, more long-term thinking, etc. When northern countries invited southern ones to be part of the Euro, meaning to benefit from a stronger currency and lower interest rates, they definitely never anticipated that these countries might overspend in such an irrational way. Spain has now many more airports (many closed or with no activity) and fast trains than countries like Germany or France which are much more populated and richer. Greece had one of the highest rate of Porsche owners in the world. Black markets are much more developped in the south and corruption is endemic until a point probably unthinkable for Germans.
Whatever the short-term solution to the Euro crisis, the only long-term solution is an alignment of the European cultures. Southern countries have to be much more rationnal in the way they spend money, even more when it is money coming from Northern Europe, they have to eliminate the black market and reduce corruption to a reasonnable level. They also have to understand that being competitive in a flat world requires a lot of efforts, as Germans did to reunify their own country. On the other side, Northern countries have to be more flexible in the way they lead the European Union and never forget that a single integrated European market with a single currency is an asset to compete with the USA, China and the rest of the world.
